Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani probably didn’t imagine his firm being referred to as a ‘chop shop.’

But is the recent measure, which was attached to $600 million dollar border-security spending bill, protectionism? And more importantly, does India play any differently?

Chinese companies might say that India looks upon their hiring practices with the same wary eye with which the U.S. appears to be looking at Indian ones.

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Chinese companies are supplying equipment for close to 25% of India’s new power projects, the WSJ’s Amol Sharma reported in February. Some of the time they’re bringing in their own workers to help.

In December, however, India’s labor ministry tightened its work visa standards by barring Indian embassies from directly issuing employment visas for projects where the total number of foreign workers exceeds a certain threshold. The threshold is 1% of the total workforce or a maximum of 20 employees, whichever is higher. The restriction holds for all industries except power, which can have a maximum of 40. Any more than that and the labor ministry steps in to have a closer look at the visa applications.

China’s Ministry of External Affairs has “expressed concerns to India on many occasions” about the visa issue, a ministry spokesman said.

Som Mittal, president of Indian technology industry trade group Nasscom, said the Indian and U.S. measures are not comparable. He said the ministry review was meant to ensure the right sort of workers were coming into India.

“People were coming in as construction workers,” said Mr. Mittal, who estimates the proposed new U.S. fees on high-skilled visas could amount to an extra $200 million to $250 million in costs for India’s IT firms. “We must distinguish between highly-skilled and construction workers.”

He added that it’s not fair for the U.S. to try to link the hiring practices of Indian firms to the massive unemployment Americans are facing.

“Unemployment [there] is in construction, in retail,”” he said. “In tech there is a shortage.”

Amit Mitra, director general of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Indian Industry, agreed. He said India was trying to reduce the use of tourist visas for work as well as to cut down on the import of semi-skilled labor. Meanwhile, India has not slapped extra fees on foreign workers.

“India is not seeking to put a penalty on foreign workers. In India it’s only a number restriction,” he said. “The U.S. is putting a huge penalty.”

Mr. Mitra said his industry body, which interacts frequently with its counterparts in other nations, hadn’t received any complaints about India’s new policies from American or European businesses. “No American firm has said to us that they have a problem with this,” he said.

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India Real Time offers analysis and insights into the broad range of developments in business, markets, the economy, politics, culture, sports, and entertainment that take place every single day in the world’s largest democracy. Regular posts from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires reporters around the country provide a unique take on the main stories in the news, shed light on what else mattered and why, and give global readers a snapshot of what Indians have been talking about all week. You can contact the editors at indiarealtime(at)wsj(dot)com.